USA for Today

Competitors cheering after Transgender Athlete fails to win gold

Transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who was born a biological male but competes as a female, failed to win a gold medal for New Zealand at the women’s weightlifting competition at the World Championships games this week in California.

Hubbard won two silver medals, finishing second to American Sarah Robles, who took the gold.

Hubbard’s second-place finish was a win for the real women in the competition.

After all, virtually Hubbard’s entire life has been spent as a man.

Despite the objections of many in the sport, the International Weightlifting Federation and International Olympic Committee rules allowed Hubbard to compete. But no level-headed person could argue against the fact that Hubbard had an unfair advantage against the women in the competition.

Still, Hubbard has been fawned over by the liberal media in the sporting world, so his competitors’ attitudes might have come as a nasty surprise.

Robles’ coach, Tim Swords, said many coaches had a problem with Hubbard competing.

“There was no controversy between the lifters about her presence here, but there was between some of the coaching staffs … nobody wanted her to win,” Swords told Reuters, using the politically correct pronoun for Hubbard.

“We’re in a power sport which is normally related to masculine tendencies … where you’ve got that aggression, you’ve got the right hormones, then you can lift bigger weights,” he said.

Mohamed Hosnytaha, coach of Shaymaa Khalaf, who placed third in the competition, said Hubbard’s taking part in the competition meant there would not be a level playing field.

“We didn’t agree with it, with somebody who was a man for so long, who has different hormones, different feelings,” he said.

It is not surprising that most of the coaches and participants at the competition did not want Hubbard to win.

While some feminists might not like hearing it, men are naturally stronger than women — that’s a biological fact. While female weightlifters may be strong in their own right, most are still no match against men who have trained and lifted weights.

Male and female categories exist because the sexes are different.

So, Hubbard’s competitors might have been rooting hard for Robles at the end, and a real woman won the women’s competition. But that doesn’t change the real problem here.

Hubbard’s inclusion in a women’s competition indicates a dangerous direction we are headed with today’s gender fluidity movement.